Berliner Zeitgeist – The Lives of Others : Film screening : a film by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.
The Lives of Others (German: Das Leben der Anderen) is a 2006 German drama film, marking the feature film debut of filmmaker Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. The plot is about the monitoring of East Berlin residents by agents of the Stasi, the GDR’s secret police. It stars Ulrich Mühe as Stasi Captain Gerd Wiesler, Ulrich Tukur as his superior Anton Grubitz, Sebastian Koch as the playwright Georg Dreyman, and Martina Gedeck as Dreyman’s lover, a prominent actress named Christa-Maria Sieland.
The film was released in Germany on 23 March 2006 and won the 2006 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. It was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 64th Golden Globe Awards.
Released 17 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, marking the end of the East German socialist state, it was the first notable drama film about the subject after a series of comedies such as Good Bye, Lenin! and Sonnenallee. The film's authenticity was considered notable, given that the director grew up outside of East Germany and was only 16 when the Berlin Wall fell.
Tickets
£4 from SVA, £5 online + booking fee, £6 on the door